Dora's Golden Son
by Rozzlynn
Summary: A mother's view of Vale's end.


AN: In this oneshot, the Wise One had never tampered with the golden sun. (Artistic licence.)  
Disclaimer: Nintendo/Camelot owns Golden Sun.

Dora's Golden Son.

Someone was knocking at the door. Dora felt like ignoring the noise, knowing that whichever neighbour it was, they'd let themselves in to check on her if she didn't answer. What time was it? Had she slept another day away? Another day of waiting... She could see sunlight filtering through the curtains. They only checked on her in the evenings. She stumbled down the stairs in her crumpled clothes, wondering if something was especially wrong today. What village business could have set her neighbours pounding at her door at this time of day? There was no point bothering a sick woman over... Wait...

Had Isaac finally succeeded? Had he and Garet returned with Jenna and Kraden, triumphantly bringing the elemental stars back to Vale? Dora rushed down the last few steps, reaching the door just as it was opened from the outside.

"Julia!" Dora stared forlornly at her friend. For a moment, she'd truly believed her son had been waiting for her.

"Are you alright?" Julia asked, grabbing Dora's hands urgently, too hurried to really wonder why she looked so disappointed. "You're well enough to walk, right? We've got to go, right now. We're evacuating Vale."

"What? Why?" Dora asked, slumping against the door frame. She could walk, but... leave the village? What if Isaac returned while she was gone? She had to stay, had to be here when her son returned...

"The Healer received a vision from the Wise One - come on, lean on me if you're feeling weak," Julia explained, mistaking the cause of Dora's hesitance to leave. "Something is going to _happen_ to Mt. Aleph again, the village isn't safe - "

"A vision?" Dora interrupted, grabbing her friend's arm with feverish strength. "Did it say how the quest is going? How our boys are doing? Where they are now?"

"Dora..." Julia paused, glancing around nervously. "Look, just because there's danger here, it doesn't necessarily mean the boys failed. Now, we've got to - "

"Just because..." Dora stared at Julia, instantly paranoid. "Is there something you're not telling me? There is, isn't there?"

"No... look, it's just that..." Julia sighed. "We don't know what it means, and we don't have the time to do anything about it, so don't read too much into this, and promise me you'll leave once I've told you, please!"

"_What_?"

"Remember the thieves the boys described? The strange - "

"Saturos, Menardi, Alex and Felix," Dora interrupted. The foreigners and the traitor. Of course she remembered.

"Well, apparently, Maud's kids were playing outside the Sanctum before we started evacuating everyone. They say they saw a blue haired man starting to climb the face of Mt. Aleph, but they lost sight of him before anyone else could come see." Julia saw Dora's face pale suddenly. She hadn't even looked very healthy to begin with. "You _know_ we'd have sent a group out to check, but it's not safe, the vision said to get everyone out of here right away. And there's not even anything up there, on the outside! We don't know why anyone would be there, we don't know for sure if this person is that thief, we don't even know if those kids are telling the truth! So, _please_, are you coming now?"

"Alex is here. Isaac was chasing him. Does this mean that... Isaac lost? Or is Alex running away? Why here?" Dora stood a little straighter, her face set. "Go on without me, Julia, and tell them that I... I'm going to find out what's happened to my son."

"You are not!"

"I have to know!"

"You..." Julia shook her head disbelievingly, then grabbed Dora's arm again, pulling her along the path.

"Ahh... Let me go! I told you, I..." Dora stumbled along, trying in vain to break free. "Let go, please!"

"And you think you're fit to confront an enemy?" Julia sighed. "If the Wise One says Mt. Aleph's not safe, I doubt that stranger will survive. Trust me, you'll be glad you didn't join him."

"Wait... it told us... The world is ours, to save or to destroy. Our inaction may bring about its destruction." Dora recited words that had haunted her dreams for months. "That's what the Wise One told us..."

"And what of that now? We must do as it says - "

"This thief wouldn't be climbing a mountain without a reason!" Dora argued, sudden hope lighting up her eyes. "If there's a chance this danger can be averted - "

"We've already been given it." Julia pulled her onwards. "Our boys are out there doing all that can be done. You _will_ be here when they return - you're all the family Isaac has left to return to."

"Isaac..." Dora fell silent as Julia gave her one last glare over her shoulder. He was all she had left. He was the world's only hope. If there was anything she could do now that might help keep that hope alive... She had to know.

"Aa-ah!" Dora winced, holding her head with her free hand.

"What's wrong?" Julia paused, concerned that her friend's strength was failing her. "Can you - "

"I'm fine." Dora tried to smile. "You're right. I'll... have to manage. We have to hurry..." She hadn't used any Psynergy since before her illness, but still, she hadn't expected it to be such a strain... Well, what did a headache matter? For her son's sake, she could do better than that!

Julia sighed, turning back to the path. Dora wasn't fine, but she wouldn't suffer in silence if there was anything _seriously _wrong. She was more sensible than that. Isaac may have inherited a lot of strength from his parents, but he had yet to take in his mother's advice about living realistically... Though that would have to wait until after he finished playing the hero. Garet was a far more well-rounded child. Always so full of life... Julia's stomach lurched, the thought that her son really might be dead catching her off guard, as it sometimes did, however hard she tried to keep it at bay. She couldn't face that fear right now - she had to get her friend out of here, and her family would be waiting outside the village for her; they needed her, there might be people missing, there would be -

When she fell over, Julia thought she'd tripped on a root. Lifting herself up, brushing the dirt from her hair, she found that she couldn't move her leg. She heard her friend running away, but when she turned to call after her, she'd already disappeared around the corner. Tugging at the still-thickening vine that had her foot held fast, she cursed. How could Dora be so...? And _why_ wouldn't this plant budge? An angry flame leaped and fumed in her cupped hands. The edge of the vine singed, withering and smoking away to reveal the sappy, fibrous core. At the touch of flame, the white fibres curled and darkened, golden-blond strands glinting in the firelight...

She lowered her hands, letting the flame die. The shade had lasted only a moment... Reaching for the burnt plant with calloused hands, she ripped it away. After casting a long, reluctant glare over her shoulder at Mt. Aleph, she continued on along the path alone.

* * *

Clinging with bleeding, shaking hands to a sharp protrusion, Dora scanned the cliff above her, fighting back another coughing fit. She'd glimpsed the thief the odd time, much higher up; she could only hope to meet him at the summit. As she inched her foot forward, the slight ledge beneath her crumbled; she fell back to a wider ridge a few feet below, and curled up with her arms over her head as a rain of scree crashed down after her. Shivering and coughing breathlessly, even as the mountain quieted, it occurred to her that this might truly be too much for her...

Blue light shone through the haze of tears obscuring her eyes. Closing her eyes against the brightness, she vaguely heard a man's voice close by, but coughing overtook her again, her lungs burning almost unbearably.

A wave of cool, soft energy swept through her, lifting the pain. She opened her eyes. When he saw that she was paying attention, the blue-haired man - it _had_ to be Alex - spoke again, an edge of urgency in his tone.

"How many people know that I'm here? Who else is coming?"

"What happened to Isaac and Garet?"

"Who else knows I'm here?"

"What happened to Isaac?"

"_Who else_ - "

"Tell me what has become of my son!"

At this demand, the thief glanced down the slope, then gazed up at the sky, frowning as if trying to gauge something. When he turned back to her, he seemed reassured somehow, and she had scrambled to her feet.

"You're alone, aren't you?"

"Tell me - "

"I will, Dora, of course." He smiled when she jumped slightly at the use of her name. "Kyle told... ah, I mean... Felix told us about you and Kyle," he amended, when she stared quite incredulously at the use of her dead husband's name. "I'm curious, though... When you people decided to cast your children out to face the blades of Weyard's best and most brutal warriors, did you honestly expect to see them again?"

"You... can't mean..." She whispered hoarsely. It couldn't be... It _couldn't_ be!

"I'm afraid so." He smirked, seeming to find this news amusing to impart. "Your dear son is dead. I'm so sorry..."

Choking on a sob that she didn't notice, on a scream that never made it to her lips, Dora slid to the ground.

"By the hand of his childhood friend, no less," Alex continued, though she seemed to be barely listening. "One of Garet's insults angered Felix; he looks upon you all with contempt these days, sees you as ignorant peasants whom he was glad to leave behind. When Felix drew his sword, his sister screamed, struggling against her restraints... Saturos silenced her. Garet tried to run, leaving his friend to die alone. Felix slaughtered Isaac, then turned on us, caught up in a berserker rage... Saturos and Menardi both fell to his blade, weeping for mercy. I only escaped with Nereid's intervention, carried to safety by the divine princess of the sea..."

Kneeling in the dust, staring sightlessly ahead, his audience did nothing to acknowledge the end of this dubious story except shiver, caught in another strangled sob. He smiled, quite satisfied. A red glow lit the sky to the north, drawing his attention, if not hers.

"The golden sun..." With a nervous, reverent murmur, he vanished in another swirl of blue light.

Dora blinked, those three words seeping into her mind and soon damping everything else. The golden son? What? That thief... had said... and left... What was... whose golden son? There was no - no other golden boy could hold a torch to her Isaac, he couldn't... be... Isaac...? The golden... what would... to rush off for?

Gazing up the slope, she saw that... the other... one was still climbing. A son to keep climbing for...? Even if... it couldn't be... Could it? She reached out to touch the cliff face. Keep climbing. And her... whole world... might not...

With a healed body and a numbed mind, a desperate mother kept climbing.

* * *

When Dora finally reached the peak, thick golden light bathed all that lay before her, a roaring humming crackle filling the air, that swum with beads of light that buzzed and swayed and sang sweet fire at her skin... Blinking through the heavy glow, her eyes found the thief by the very edge, head thrown back in oblivious ecstasy as the burning escalated with blinding abandon, but there was no way he was going to take her golden son from her; and her feet followed to pull her through rejoicing blots of sparks of shrieking voices, hands shoving at his back set something loose and resplendent trails of gleaming motion and fracturing, clamouring moments seared her mind, every speck of the universe aflame with incandescent grief because this _wasn't_ her son, it was light and life and reeling awareness that she shunned, struck out at without following; there was no revelation worth dragging her soul through because Isaac was dead and now no light would ever illuminate her son, her saviour, her heart and soul...

It felt like the end of the world.

It was the end of the world.


End file.
